Chapter 192: Growth Potential

The status screen finished unfolding above the Beast Taming Compendium, and Jaxir recognized the name at the top right away.

The tiny Treant might look harmless now. However, its lineage came from the same creature that had controlled almost the entire battlefield in the Willow Dungeon.

Considering how annoying the Drowned Willow Witch had been to kill, that wasn’t a bad place to start.

Name: Drowned Willow Sapling

Level: 0

Founding Race: Drowned Willow Witch

[A lineage of Mage willows possessing a powerful affinity for water. Mature members naturally draw upon surrounding water and compatible natural mana to sustain their bodies, reinforce their roots, and fuel their Abilities.]

Growth Potential:

Common: 100%

Elite: 20%

Mage: 0.1%

Archmage: 0.000001%

Growth Requirement:

[0/1,000 MP]

[Reach Level 15]

Jaxir stared at the percentages for a while before his eyes settled on the last section.

1,000 MP to raise the Sapling all the way from Level 0 to Level 15? After what he’d just spent making a Common turret, that was basically cheap.

The reason wasn’t hard to guess, though. The Treant Seed had already been an Epic Level 15 treasure, so most of the foundation needed to get there had probably been packed into the seed from the start.

A lower-Level seed likely wouldn’t have been anywhere near this convenient.

Jaxir looked back at the growth percentages, and he started to understand the Epic Grade a bit better too.

Even after being cultivated in the most basic way possible, the Treant still had a 20% natural chance of reaching Elite. Mage was possible as well, even if the odds dropped to 1 in 1,000.

He doubted a Common Treant Seed would have produced anything close to that. The Archmage chance was practically a joke, though.

"One in a hundred million."

Jaxir leaned closer to make sure he hadn’t misread a decimal somewhere, then shook his head when the number stayed exactly the same.

"Very ambitious of you."

The little Treant in the page swayed its hanging leaves, with no idea it had just been insulted.

Jaxir’s eyes went back to the Level marker, and a different thought came to him.

If evolution depended partly on bloodline and partly on outside materials, then raising the Treant to Level 15 before improving its standard might actually make things harder. Leveling it first could lock more of its current structure into place.

In that case, it made far more sense to cram as much potential into it as possible while it was still Level 0 and barely formed.

He focused on the Elite percentage.

Evolutionary Appraisal reacted to the thought almost right away. The status screen shifted as the formation dug deeper into the Treant’s current structure.

The percentages faded, and several branching paths took their place. Most of them were still too complicated for Jaxir to really understand.

One path, however, settled into something simple enough to read.

[Available Elite Evolution]

[Clearwater Spirit Pearl x1]

[Living Willow Heartwood x1]

[Deepwater Moss Essence x1]

Jaxir grinned.

There was no vague instruction about finding some special environment. Evolutionary Appraisal had handed him an exact shopping list. Would he use this treant in battle? He didn’t know. But he could still appreciate the process.

Jaxir was starting to see why a Legendary Beast Taming Legacy might be worth owning, even for someone with no plans to become a dedicated beast tamer.

He opened his contact interface and called Luxy.

The old woman’s face appeared after a short delay. Her mouth was already opening, with the unmistakable look of someone about to complain.

The last time Jaxir had contacted her, he’d been halfway up a cliff with violent winds screaming around him. He had probably earned at least part of whatever lecture was coming.

Still, he didn’t let her start.

"I need these."

Jaxir pushed the list of three items into the shared interface.

Luxy’s mouth stayed open for another moment before she blinked and read through it.

The complaint vanished. In its place was the familiar look she always got whenever Jaxir stopped wasting her time and started spending money instead.

She gave a small nod. "I can get all three."

Jaxir glanced back down at the Compendium.

"I can’t believe I complained about this reward when I first got it." He smiled as the Drowned Willow Sapling shifted around in its page. "Having an Ultra Merchant I can call from anywhere is ridiculously convenient."

Luxy rolled her eyes.

"It’ll cost you around nine hundred thousand copper."

Jaxir blinked. "Really, that’s it?"

He laughed and accepted before Luxy could decide she’d undercharged him.

After seeing the kind of numbers attached to Legendary Legacy items, he had half expected his first real evolution attempt to take a painful bite out of his wealth. 900,000 copper wasn’t nothing. Compared to what this could potentially do, though, it felt almost cheap.

The transaction went through a few moments later.

Three objects came through Luxy’s remote exchange one after another.

The Clearwater Spirit Pearl arrived first, a pale-blue sphere filled with slowly moving water. A strip of dark living heartwood came next, its cut surface still carrying thin veins of green mana. The last was a container holding a thick, dark-green essence drawn from Deepwater Moss.

Jaxir barely glanced at any of them before turning the Beast Taming Compendium toward them.

The first evolution path lit up.

He pressed the Clearwater Spirit Pearl against the page, and the Compendium pulled it inside before he’d even fully let go.

The Living Willow Heartwood followed, then the Deepwater Moss Essence. Each one appeared around the Drowned Willow Sapling, until the little creature was surrounded by three separate streams of mana.

Jaxir leaned forward to see what would happen next.

He didn’t notice that Luxy had stopped moving.

Her eyes had followed the materials into the Compendium at first. But, the moment she properly focused on the three books lying around Jaxir, her expression changed.

The color slowly drained from her face as her gaze moved from the Legendary Compendiums to Jaxir himself, as though something she’d been overlooking this whole time had finally become impossible to ignore.

Her pupils shrank.

Luxy’s heart jolted. "S-s-s-s-Sovereign..."